Testamentary trusts are included in your will to take effect after your death. Common options include the spousal trust, trusts set up for minor children or grandchildren, providing for family members with special needs, discretionary trusts for children who are spendthrifts and gifts for charities. Here are some examples:
The Spousal Trust
In this situation, you set [...]

There are a number of creative ways that you can use a living trust. Common uses would be for a family trust, estate freeze, managing retirement needs, avoiding probate, ensuring confidentiality, and structuring a divorce settlement. Here are some examples.
The Family Trust
A family trust is a very useful device for holding investments or other assets [...]

You have probably heard of family trusts, private trusts, or corporate trusts. You may also have heard of offshore trusts or international trusts. There is a mystique about trusts as well as a lot of confusion about what they are and when they should be considered. Many people think trusts are just for the rich [...]

There are several types of PAs as discussed following.
General Power of Attorney
This document gives authority to someone else to look after all your affairs, generally of a financial nature. You would have the option of giving all the powers right now, but protecting yourself by not giving a copy of the original document to the [...]

What Is a Power of Attorney  (PA)?
Many lawyers draft a PA at the same time that they prepare a will. A PA designates a person or a trust company to take over your affairs if, for example, you can no longer handle them because of illness or incapacitation, referred to as an enduring power of [...]

Anticipate Who Might Contest Your Will
Think of who might challenge the content of your will. It would be primarily people who feel that you should have included them but didn’t, or did include them but did not give them much, or you had restrictions on the access to or timing of receipt, or nature of [...]

To reinforce the necessity to obtain a legal consultation before completing or re-doing a will, just look at some of the many reasons legal advice is specifically required because of the complex legal issues and options involved:

you are separated from your spouse but not divorced
you are divorced and want to re-marry
you are divorced and paying [...]

A life annuity provides regular payments that will continue for the rest of your life, no matter how long you live. When you die however, any money left in the annuity goes to the issuer, not your estate. The exception would be if you arrange an annuity which has a guaranteed payment period.
There are various [...]

Here is a brief overview of the key federal and provincial government pension or financial assistance programs and guidelines that you should be familiar with. They can be modified periodically, of course, so obtain a current update of regulations and criteria relevant to your circumstances. In addition, there could be exceptions to the general guidelines [...]

What if you are still running your business at the time you suddenly die? Maybe you are the key element to the business success, whether it is a family business or not. What would be the impact on the business and your estate? The business could cease to function after your death. If the business [...]